Like many physicians, I can tell you the exact moment when I decided to become a healer. It involved an experience with a man in Uganda dying of AIDS in a house made of mud crumbling back into the earth. It involved a 21-year-old me as an undergraduate anthropology researcher, helpless in my confrontation of the agony of death. It was a powerful, pivotal moment that changed my life, a tangible whisper that ignited a deep sense of powerlessness that ultimately pushed me away from public health and onto the path of medicine.

Becoming a physician was not easy. I struggled to learn the details of the physical world and pass the MCAT examination, learning and relearning the same things over and over again. After almost failing my first medical school course in anatomy, I invested myself entirely in learning the language and culture of medicine. I excelled in my clinical years and graduated medical school in 2010 as an empowered and passionate person.